Washington The Iraqi government has agreed to let U.S. Rep. Tony Hall visit the country next week to assess a humanitarian crisis that has festered since the Gulf War of 1990, Hall's office said Monday. The Dayton Democrat, who has traveled to other crisis points including Sierra Leone and North Korea, will spend three days visiting hospitals and other facilities to seek understanding why aid has been ineffective in stemming malnourishment and other medical problems. Iraq has been under economic sanctions since the war ended, which some say have thwarted the country's ability to recover from the devastation of the bombing campaign. The Persian Gulf War destroyed much of the country's medical infrastructure, according to a report by the World Health Organization. In 1996 the WHO found that much of the population existed in a state of ``semi-starvation.'' Hall will be only the second member of Congress to travel in Iraq since the war, according to Hall's office. The last visitor was then-U.S. Rep. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who went to help a pair of U.S. oilmen in diplomatic trouble. Hall flies to Amman, Jordan, on Friday, where he'll spend the night before driving to Iraq. Flights are not permitted into Iraq. Hall is to return to Washington on April 22. Story Filed By Cox Newspapers 

Which other problem is affecting Iraq apart from malnutrition?


Among the early blows struck for independence was a rebellion in the town of Olhão. On 16 June 1808, the townsfolk — armed with little more than ancient swords, spears, and stones — attacked and captured the local French garrison. It's said that a party of local men then set sail from Olhão all the way to Brazil, without maps or navigational aids, to tell the king of the insurrection. The real battle, however, was waged under the leadership of the Duke of Wellington, whose coalition forces expelled the French after two years of bitter fighting. The war left Portugal further weakened, and in 1822 its major empire outpost, Brazil, declared independence. At the same time, a dispute over the crown continually raged between Pedro IV, the absentee monarch who preferred to reign as Emperor of Brazil rather than return to Portugal, and his brother Miguel. The power struggle, with strong overtones of absolutism versus liberalism, excited the interest and intervention of other powers. With British help, Pedro defeated Miguel off Cape St. Vincent in 1833, and his expeditionary force marched to Lisbon. Pedro took the throne, though armed struggle continued for months and the lingering bitterness long after that. By 1892 Portugal, racked by wars and the continuing expense of maintaining its African colonies (including those of Mozambique and Angola), declared itself bankrupt. The seeds of discontent with absolutist rule were sown. Kingdom's End Bloodshed would haunt the remaining years of the Portuguese monarchy. On 1 February 1908, the royal family was riding in an open carriage along the Lisbon river front plaza, Terreiro do Paço, when an assassin opened fire and killed King Carlos and the heir to the throne, Prince Luis Filipe. The prince's younger brother, Prince Manuel, was also hit, but he survived and was thus propelled to the throne at the tender age of 19. Amid republican agitation, a surprise uprising led by elements within the armed forces deposed Manuel in 1910. Having ruled for less than three years, Manuel died in exile in 1932 in England. The sudden end of more than seven centuries of monarchy brought confusion and crisis to the country. Presidents and prime ministers were ushered into and out of office an unbelievable 45 times between 1910 and 1926, until a military revolution suspended Portugal's problematic democracy. 

There were many disputes going on, when did the first dispute happened?


The Albanians first appear in the historical record in Byzantine sources of the late 11th century. At this point, they were already fully Christianized. Islam later emerged as the majority religion during the centuries of Ottoman rule, though a significant Christian minority remained. After independence (1912) from the Ottoman Empire, the Albanian republican, monarchic and later Communist regimes followed a systematic policy of separating religion from official functions and cultural life. Albania never had an official state religion either as a republic or as a kingdom. In the 20th century, the clergy of all faiths was weakened under the monarchy, and ultimately eradicated during the 1950s and 1960s, under the state policy of obliterating all organized religion from Albanian territories. The Communist regime that took control of Albania after World War II persecuted and suppressed religious observance and institutions and entirely banned religion to the point where Albania was officially declared to be the world's first atheist state. Religious freedom has returned to Albania since the regime's change in 1992. Albania joined the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in 1992, following the fall of the communist government, but will not be attending the 2014 conference due a dispute regarding the fact that its parliament never ratified the country's membership. Albanian Muslim populations (mainly secular and of the Sunni branch) are found throughout the country whereas Albanian Orthodox Christians as well as Bektashis are concentrated in the south and Roman Catholics are found in the north of the country. The first recorded Albanian Protestant was Said Toptani, who traveled around Europe, and in 1853 returned to Tirana and preached Protestantism. He was arrested and imprisoned by the Ottoman authorities in 1864. Mainline evangelical Protestants date back to the work of Congregational and later Methodist missionaries and the work of the British and Foreign Bible Society in the 19th century. The Evangelical Alliance, which is known as VUSh, was founded in 1892. Today VUSh has about 160 member congregations from different Protestant denominations. VUSh organizes marches in Tirana including one against blood feuds in 2010. Bibles are provided by the Interconfessional Bible Society of Albania. The first full Albanian Bible to be printed was the Filipaj translation printed in 1990. 


Historically, Albania enjoyed a general freedom of religion for how many centuries prior to Communism?